Four city employees – including a correction officer – were charged yesterday with ripping off the welfare system for more than $130,000 by creating dozens of phony housing accounts.

Officials said the suspects pulled off the scam between 1999 and 2002, while they were employed at the city’s Waverly Job Center in Manhattan.

Paul Balukas, the state’s welfare inspector-general, said the crooked employees issued rent checks to fake landlords on behalf of homeless welfare recipients – who had no idea their names were being used.

The scheme unraveled when the Human Resources Administration tried to recoup expenses from one of the homeless people, who denied receiving any rent benefits during that period.